Cleaners at Basildon Hospital have won a two-year battle to be granted full NHS terms and conditions. This means that they will also get a 3% pay rise. After the cleaners were transferred back into NHS employment two years ago they remained to work under the same conditions as when they were still working for the private contractor. The cleaners were paid minimum wage while some of their colleagues earned more for the same job, only because they were employed directly by NHS from the beginning. The new agreement not only gives the 300 cleaners the same wages as the cleaners that are directly employed by NHS, other aspects of the collective agreement such as holidays and sick pay will now also apply to them.
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For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers or Sanne van der Gaag, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Willy De Backer wdebacker@etui.org © ETUI